Richard A. Hughes

Richard Allan Hughes died on Wednesday, March 27, 2024 at his residence in Williamsport.  He was born on July 30, 1941 as the only child of Rev. William E. Hughes and Dorothy M. Hughes in Batavia, New York.  He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Diane; daughter, Heather (Paul); and son, Jim; as well as six grandchildren.  He attended six public schools in Illinois, Indiana and New York.  He received the B.A. degree from the University of Indianapolis in 1963, the S.T.B. from Boston University School of Theology in 1966 and the Boston University Graduate School in 1970.  He also studied at the University of Geneva and the University of Paris.

He was an ordained United Methodist minister, and he served churches in Indiana, Massachusetts, Georgia and New Mexico.  From 1970 until his retirement in 2017, he was a professor of religion at Lycoming College, where he held the M.B. Rich Chair of Religion for 40 years.  As a professor, he was a member of the First Catholic-Protestant Ecumenical Seminar in Rome in the summer of 1972, and in the summer of 1974, he was a visiting scholar at the National Diet Library of Japan in Tokyo.

He published 12 books - one in Russia in Russian translation and two in Brazil in Portuguese translations - and more than 50 papers in theology, biblical studies, depth psychology/psychiatry, ethics and law.  He delivered many university lectures in Spain, Switzerland and the United States.

As a student, he was active in the Civil Rights Movement between 1963 and 1966, primarily in the Boston School Desegregation Struggle, the Selma Voting Rights Campaign and the first wave of the anti-Vietnam anti-war protest in Boston in 1965-1966.  As a Lycoming professor, he was one of the original instructors for the Lycoming County hospice, and he initiated many public colloquia in death, grief and suicide.  He was a co-founder and principal developer of the continuing education program of the Susquehanna Conference of the United Methodist Church.  Between 1976 and 1992, he was active in the ecumenical movement as the Methodist theologian for the Pennsylvania Conference on Interchurch Cooperation, preparing public policy papers for churches and the legislature.

Family and friends are invited to attend a public viewing on Friday, April 5, 2024 from 10 a.m. to noon at Clarke Chapel on Lycoming College Campus located at 700 Warrior Way, Williamsport. The funeral service will follow at the chapel beginning at noon. Interment will be in Twin Hills Memorial Park, Montoursville.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial contributions be made in Richard's name to the Earl and Millie Beane Housing Fund remit to Trustees of Boston University designate on memo line to STH Beane Housing Fund send to Boston University Gift Processing c/o JPMorgan Chase & Co. PO Box 22605, New York, NY 10087. 

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